Dozen area teams featured in state volleyball playoffs Saturday

A dozen area high schools will take part in Saturday’s first round of the N.C. High School Athletic Assocation volleyball tournament.

The PAC-6 4-A is represented by champion Riverside (23-1), second-place East Chapel Hill (13-9) and third-place Roxboro Person (12-6) in the 64-team bracket. Seeding is by final individual conference standing with ties broken by playoff or coin flip.

The Big Eight 3-A Conference is also sending three teams to the state playoffs.

Cedar Ridge (20-7) tied Chapel Hill (18-8) for second place behind undefeated champion Cardinal Gibbons and won a coin flip for the No. 2 seed. Chapel Hill is the No. 3 seed and Orange (11-8), the No. 4 seed, also made the tournament field.

In the 2-A field are a pair of area conference champions.

South Granville (21-5) won both the Northern Carolina 2-A Conference regular-season and tournament titles to earn a No. 1 seed, and Carrboro (17-6) is the Mid-State 2-A Conference champion.

In the 1-A ranks, Voyager Academy (16-3) tied Raleigh Charter at 11-1 in league play for the North Central Athletic Conference title but lost a coin-flip and fell to the No. 2 seed for the playoffs. NCAC No. 3 seed Roxboro Community School (16-7) is in the field, as is wild card pick Kestrel Heights (11-11).

Granville Central is the No. 2 seed from the Tar-Roanoke 1-A Conference and will host Roxboro Community School in Saturday’s opening round.

As of Thursday night, first-round match times had not been released for all games involving area teams. The NCHSAA suggests a 7 p.m. start, but individual schools are free to set their own times.

Here’s a look at Saturday’s area volleyball playoff schedule with times included that had been announced as of Thursday night. Conference, conference seedings and records are included with the name of schools area teams are playing.

The complete brackets can be found at nchsaa.org online. Playing sites for the first five playoff rounds are determined by the higher seed in each match, which is awarded a home game. If two teams with the same seed meet, the team with the higher overall winning percentage gets the home match.

Note that on the brackets, playing times listed are not official.

GIRLS’ TENNIS ON TAP

Area individual qualifiers in 1-A, 2-A, 3-A and 4-A open state regional tournament play in singles and doubles today at four locations. Players will open with first-round matches at 2 p.m. today and the quarterfinals will follow later.

Some locations may squeeze in semifinals as well, depending on the weather forecast for Saturday. Otherwise, semifinals and finals in both singles and doubles will be played on Saturday with semifinals starting at 9 a.m.

Top finishers Saturday will advance to the state championship round a week from today.

Sites for today’s and Saturday’s matches are Page High School in Greensboro for 4-A, the Burlington Tennis Center in Burlington for 3-A, Jaycees Park in Reidsville for 2-A and River Birch Tennis Center in Greenville for 1-A.

The complete list of area qualifiers can be found in Scoreboard on page B2.